The Blue eyed Lady
by narquoise
Summary: Sherlock Holmes has been gone more than two weeks, and the good doctor is everything but reassured. More than two weeks later, he comes back — or rather, SHE.
1. Finding Holmes

**Author's note: Can get a bit magical in the later chapters. Be warned. :)**

* * *

><p>John had come back from a week's holiday in Cardiff with his girlfriend, Nora. Before he left, though, Sherlock didn't seem to pay any attention to it (or if he did, paid very little) and let him go on with his "boring little vacation". What John <em>didn't<em> expect to see was a look of slight disapproval on his face, almost as if he _had _been listening. To avoid further confusion (somehow), John had devised a simple equation in his head.

Girlfriend _plus_ Sherlock Holmes _equals _Disaster.

It had kept him very, very sane for the past few months that he'd started to date Nora Bromley. He'd ignore every single disapproving look from his flatmate — the small scowl that formed on his face when he'd much rather have dinner with Nora instead of work on a case, the peeved plucking and playing of his violin whenever he'd hear her voice coming from anywhere, the fumbling around with a pen or any small object when her name was mentioned. Soon enough, his mantra would be "He's never going to approve."

He wasn't sure if it bothered him or not.

After the couple had said their goodbyes at the train station, they both left for their respective residences. _"Not another storm of disapproval. Not another case," _he thought to himself over and over while he was in the cab. He only realised that he'd been unconsciously repeating it to himself until the cabbie looked at him from the rear view mirror and asked, "Are you alright, mate?" John flushed, staring at the cabbie like a deer in the headlights; the cabbie gave up and shook his head, getting back to driving. John swore he could've heard him say something, but he immediately dismissed it.

"Oh, John! You're back!" Mrs. Hudson gleefully exclaimed, wrapping her arms around him. "Well, have you got your laundry with you?"

"Uhm… Yes, I have." John smiled.

"Good. In you go, I've just put the kettle on."

"Is Sherlock in?"

"Oh… No. He hasn't been for four days now."

John raised an eyebrow at this statement. _Four days_. _"Easy, John. He's been gone longer than that." _"Oh," he uttered.

"It must be for a case. You know how he is. Now, come in!" Mrs. Hudson hastily led him in, taking with her one of the three bags he'd been carrying with him (a small knapsack).

The flat had remained untouched. There were no new, stolen body parts in the refrigerator or in any other place he'd looked. No foul odours emanating from strange corners of the flat. Instead, there was just peace and, very surprisingly, food.

This, however, was just the first day.

By the third, he began to get bored of the silence.

The fifth, he began to pace around the room.

The seventh drove him absolutely wild.

"_Steady on, John. He's been gone longer than that."_"No, he has _not_!" His eyes widened when he realised that he'd screamed in his room, and that Mrs. Hudson had seen him do so. "O-oh."

The tenth day. He'd resorted to calling Lestrade.

"_What?" _He sounded irate over the phone. Must've had another argument with the missus.

"Greg, have you seen — or at least _heard_ from Sherlock?"

"I thought he was home with you."

"He's been gone for more than a week. I was hoping you'd know where he was."

"He hasn't contacted me since that case last month." _The case he'd been on when he had a date with Nora. _"Even then, he seemed pretty upset." There was a short pause, followed by a small chuckle. "You two had a little domestic, didn't you?"

"You're daft."

"John, you're _flatmates_. Arguments happen all the time — comes naturally."

John groaned over the phone. "Will you at _least _help me find him?"

"I'll see what I can do."

Fourteen days. _E__ighteen days_.

There is absolutely no need to describe John Watson after eighteen days, flatmate gone.

Lestrade had phoned him several times. Sherlock, nowhere to be found.

Recurring nightmares returning. It's about the same old thing — the war. Except Sherlock had somehow insinuated himself into his dreams with him fighting on the battlefield with him, and a number of times _dying_, _getting caught. _On a good day, Sherlock survived. By now, that was all he was hoping for at the end of the day. _"Sherlock, you have to stay alive."  
><em>

His girlfriend had phoned him several times. She wasn't much help. She equally despised Sherlock.

"… _sometimes I don't talk for days on end. Would that bother you?"  
><em>

Twenty days.

"Stop frowning, John." Mrs. Hudson hands him a cup of tea. He didn't answer her at all. He simply took the cup and put it to his lips. His eyes widened and he spat some out. "Well, what did you expect? Something lukewarm?" His tongue, burnt.

_**BANG BANG BANG. JOHN. BANG BANG BANG. JOHN. **_A woman's voice yelling from the outside. She hit the door repeatedly.

"Must be yours. Get it, dear," Mrs. Hudson smiled, taking her tea. John got up to get the door.

_**BANG BANG BANG. JOHN.**  
><em>

"Nora, what is it n—"

_**OW. OW. OW. JOHN.**  
><em>

_"Wh-what?"_

Three blows to the head.

_"That's going to hurt later, oh God."  
><em>

This woman wasn't staring at him. She was looking down at her feet, embarrassed. Her fist flew through the air again, aiming for the door. John caught the dainty fist in his rough hand.

_JOH—  
><em>

She stared up at him.

For a moment, John felt like he needed to lean on the doorjamb. Surely, someone had been trying to mess with his head. Dark curls cascading from the top of her pretty head. Striking blue eyes. Fine, defined cheekbones. She was wearing _his _clothes. _His _scarf, _his _coat, _his _shirt, _his _shoes. One problem. Instead of the image he had of Sherlock wearing in all his determined, self-assured stature, this person in front of him slouched, almost as if the clothes were too heavy for her. Worst of all was the expression on her face. _Mortification_.

"Don't you recognise me?" She said shamefully, unable to look John in the eye.

"Wh-who are you?" John asked shakily. He watched as the embarrassed look on her face had turned to one of hurt.

"D-do you really need me to tell you where you put your Browning? That your limp has returned? That you take your tea without anything in it?"

John remained silent.

"It's me, you idiot." Their eyes met. Her steely gaze was undeniably _his_.


	2. Getting Over the Initial Shock

_It's not you. It can't be you. _

"Look at me," the woman said firmly. John flinched at the sudden, clear sound of her voice. _This can't be him. She can't be him. _But her silky, rich and almost _too _feminine voice was so undeniably authoritative. Every syllable, every tone, enunciated and stressed the way Sherlock would. He closed his eyes and shook his head, determined to let the world around him move and shift about so when he opened his eyes, that six-foot-tall consulting detective would be standing right in front of him, staring him down, miffed. When he opened his eyes, _she_ was still there. That five-foot-eight-and-a-half-inch (when slouched) woman standing right in front of him, straightening up in those clothes that so unflatteringly hung over her broad shoulders and fitted onto her slender form.

She raised an arm, and (possibly in fear) he stepped back once, stopping when he felt the door hit his back, only to find out that she was pointing a dainty finger right at him. The sleeve had been too long for him to notice. "_You _should believe me. No, no… You _should _believe me. _Believe me_." From the look on her face, you could tell that she was almost _itching_ to prove that she was indeed Sherlock Holmes of 221B Baker Street, flatmate of John Watson, the world's only consulting detective, and that she _had _the proof. But John remained steadfast in his denial, only because this woman looked desperate enough to be a _great_ pretender.

"No, you're _not _Sherlock. You're a vagrant off the streets." And she _did _look like a vagrant off the streets. "You probably know Sherlock. He sent you here to make me stop worrying, didn't he?" John's voice broke at the last syllable. "Well then, tell him he's a _bloody bastard_."

"_I'm _the bloody bastard?" the woman recoiled. "Are you _remotely _aware of how hard it was to _get _here looking like… _This?_"

Even the way she hissed at her was exactly how he would've reacted.

"My bone structure, hormones, voice — different!" John was a bit taken aback at what this woman did next. Just when he thought she was going to point to herself, she swiftly cupped both of her ample breasts in her hands firmly. "I have _breasts_, John! BREASTS," she declared furiously.

"_Of course you have breasts. Everyone can see that."_

John was determined not to come undone and fall into hysterics. He was a mix of confusion and amusement, and _everything else_.

No, no. That mix would be an understatement.

More like an explosion blowing up in his face. _**BANG! BOOM! BAM!**_

The woman groaned to herself. "I'd have to go through the tedious task of selecting _brassiere_. How do you even measure one's own— The Herculean task of _selecting brassiere_! I'd feel like a massive pervert in the department store! And now I'm stood here feeling strange and in these loose clothes — JOHN WILL YOU JUST LET ME IN RIGHT NOW I FEEL AS IF EVERYONE'S STARING ME DOWN _I AM NOT A WOMAN THIS IS RIDICULOUS_."

Soon, John was practically observing the streets for people who _were _watching this woman break out into paroxysms of rage. In an attempt to calm her down, he held her by her shoulders, large hands on either side of her. Immediately, she stopped, but she was overcome by a look of shock like a deer in the headlights. He wasn't sure if he was supposed to feel scared at the look on her face. A sort of twisted want to physically harm him, or worse to slap his hands away from her in recoil and spit on his face was present throughout. In a split second move (too stupid, in John's opinion), he grabbed the woman by the wrist and dragged her inside, half-slamming the door behind him.

The tension in the woman's face seemed to have died down significantly as they stepped into that familiar foyer. "Mrs. Hu—" John covered her mouth.

"Sh-shut up." John declared, his hand struggling against her mouth.

"_Mrphm mhlet me goh, Hohn!_"

"Upstairs. _Now_."

Though she was decidedly She felt a shiver run down her spine as John ordered her to get inside the flat upstairs. She was led to a chair in the living room — to be precise, the chair that Sherlock had so often sat on — and was made to sit. She ran a hand through her curls, brushing away any stray curls that blocked her view of John's face. Anything to see whether he was reacting well to this or not.

As far as she could see it, he simply wasn't. John was now nervously pacing about the room, his gaze occasionally meeting with hers, and each time he became more and more agitated.

"You _have_ to believe me," she said flatly, crossing her thin legs. Her face isn't desperate anymore. It's calm. Clear. The look on her face was so decided that it sent shivers down John's spine.

John stopped in his tracks. He clenched his fists.

He'd forgotten himself. He took a swing at Sherlock.

With all his might.

When he opened his eyes, he could see _her _— Sherlock — there, awkwardly laying back against the armrests and cushions of his — her chair.

Had she not moved three inches back, it would've hit her square in her sharp, but delicately feminine jaw. Disgusted by what he'd done, John put his hands to his face and let out a deep exhale.

"I'm honestly trying to take this all in all at once right now. Do you know how difficult that is?" John asked shakily, shaking his head as he tried to hold back the tears that were stinging his eyes. Sherlock didn't intend to reply. She only watched and listened to John's words. "You're a… A wo-wom-woma-wom…"

"Speak up, John. _Woman_. God, you say it as if it were the most horrible thing in the world."

"_Prat." _"You're a woman."

"If you couldn't tell by the figure," she rolled her eyes, and took off her scarf and coat gingerly. "It's been hard going around like this. Honestly, _this _sort of 'welcome back home'? Rubbish."

And this was the woman in her entirety. Her black hair was a mess of untamed, but soft curls, now swept back to the side. What she lacked in obvious size, her chest seemed to fill in, making John gulp as he observed the slightest hint of a nipple showing through the clean white layer of fabric. Her belt was cinched in tighter to prevent the pants from falling down. Her shoes were very clearly a problem. She clearly waddled around in them.

This was Sherlock Holmes. Consulting detective. A _woman_.

How would he even begin to explain her existence to everyone?

A sharp slap to the face. Wait, what?

John turned to Sherlock, who now faced him with a renewed indignation on her face.


End file.
